


Cure

by ardett



Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore
Genre: End of the World, F/M, Gen, Global Warming, Mythology - Freeform, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-19 10:22:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29873226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ardett/pseuds/ardett
Summary: The old gods watch as mankind fades silently into the long night.
Kudos: 1





	Cure

**Author's Note:**

> posting some backdated works, figured it was time to start using archive as, well, an archive
> 
> written for some contest I don't remember and the prompt: antidote
> 
> posted: March 6th, 2021

Underneath a heavenly sky, the earth seethes. It groans and buckles and curls in upon itself. It has been ravaged by the hand of mankind and it aches.

Her name has been forgotten, but Gaia still rests beneath it all.

Her hair has been chopped short to rounded tree stumps. Her once pearly white teeth now melt away with the ice caps. Her blush withers as the roses do. Her soft skin has turned rough as gravel and asphalt. Her fine gowns of fog and mist have grown dirty with city swelter. Even her tears run dry, waterfall tracks left arid as global heat wrings out the ground.

Gaia can no longer see her beloved through the smog.

She knows Uranus resides there, high above her. But though his laugh will still thunder down to her, Gaia cannot see his eye winking back at her with the wax and wane of the moon. She cannot see his stardust freckles, his beard of delicate clouds crisped in pink and gold. He’s blotted out by the gray smog that clings to her.

Gaia opens her mouth to call to him in the song of whales and sea sharks. 

The Mariana Trench yawns wide, expanding inches into the seabed.

She is used to the brine of saltwater, but what floods her mouth is not that. It is poison and pollution, corroded metal and twisted plastic and all manner of trash scraping down her throat. Gaia near wretches and earthquakes shudder through the ocean.

She feels a moment of regret as she makes up her mind. Mankind has called her Mother Earth. The humans are of her, her children. But though it pains her, Gaia must withdraw.

So withdraw she does, sending herself up the slopes of Everest to her love, leaving behind just enough of herself for life to continue to pulse through the Earth’s core.

Once she joins Uranus in the sky, she calls together a council.

The council meets in Daybreak, Uranus’s most luxurious hall for hosting guests. The floor is tiled in the whitest of cumulus marble. The sun itself gleams as the golden double doors.

Gaia watches as a sliver of sun peels aside to allow the entry of Chronos and his wife, Rhea.

Chronos enters as a wizened old man, leaning on his scythe like a crutch. The blade twitches over the cloudy floor like the tick tocking of a clock hand. His eyes glint like the face of a pocket watch.

Though they are all eternal, it is Rhea who has retained her childlike beauty, fragile bones and flushed cheeks. She still styles her hair in a Greek coronet and wears flowing silk robes in homage to the last beings that honored her. That same flowing hair is frayed at the ends with worry.

With all four of them, the council convenes.

Gaia stands before them. Her voice is stripped of its birdsong, leaving only the desperate whir of insects and cicadas.

“This cannot be allowed to continue,” she begins. “Mankind can no longer be allowed to thrive. They are a race of destruction, of selfishness. They will destroy Earth. Must we change galaxies again after another failed attempt at life? Must we be the ones to abandon our newest planet, our newest home? I propose we uproot the problem where we know it lies.”

Chronos’s eyes twinkle, mirthful. His words come out slowly. “They call me Father, you know. Father Time. And they call you Mother.” He states it with an amused smile.

Rhea’s brow creases in concern. She clutches to her husband. “They are children. Are not all children destructive, selfish? They have barely lived at all.”

“Their lives are short but vibrant, as with all mortal things,” Uranus dismisses with a waved hand. A storm swirls between his fingers. “Gaia’s suffering is far longer, far more prolonged, than any they endure and still they abuse her.”

Rhea rests a hand to her young and fluttering heart. “I feel for you, Gaia, I do,” she insists. “But you are an immortal being. How could such small and innocent things damage you so?”

“They have become a scourge across the planet, a plague upon mine own body. I tried to call to Uranus and drank deeply of the oceans that were once so pure and clean when we first chose this solar system. As soon as I took a sip, I realized it was poisoned. That I have been poisoned. I now ask the council for the antidote,” Gaia pleads. “Heal me. Heal the Earth.”

Uranus inclines his head towards Chronos and Rhea as his voice rumbles through the hall. “The decision, as always, rests in your hands.”

Rhea looks down upon the Earth before giving a mournful sigh, like the first breath of a newborn and the last exhale of an elder. “None need to suffer,” she whispers. Chronos nods. Rhea’s palm brushes over her stomach and far below, mankind's children cease to be born. There is no pain, nor is there progeny. Only the last of generations waiting to grow ancient.

“Let us watch mankind go to rest,” Chronos intones. The wrinkles on his face seem to deepen. He raises his scythe and hooks the curved blade round the world, sending it spinning slow at first, then faster and faster.

The old gods watch as mankind fades silently into the long night.


End file.
